Dow 18,000 beckons, but a bottom in oil prices does not

Back when the Dow was last trading under 7,000, you’d have to have been a bonafide nutjob to predict blue chips would hit the big, fat, round number of 18,000 in less than six years. Of course, there’s no shortage of those when it comes to stock-market predictions.

If Bill Berger were still alive at the time, the mutual-fund legend would have laughed in the face of such a tame prognostication. He probably would have been talking about how the financial crisis was merely a road bump on the way to his Dow 116,200 target by 2046.

Then there’s Wharton professor Jeremy Siegel, who said early last year that the Dow would hit 18,000 by the end of this year. Not quite as outlandish as Berger’s, but bold nonetheless, considering the index was under 14,500 when he made his “best bet” prediction.

Siegel has a great chance of being exactly right. Maybe even today, but if not, it’s hard to imagine finishing off the year without the moths getting drawn to the 18,000 flame for the first time ever.

Moving outside our borders, China seems to be the hip place among the pundit set to be making calls these days. Not just the for red-hot Shanghai Composite, either (see our call of the day). Also read: Why China stock gains may make sense.

Key market gauges

That round number is still close, but may not be reached on Monday. Futures on the Dow
US:YMZ4
are lower ahead of the open, along with the rest of the U.S. market. Asia
ADOW, +0.27%
didn’t do much, except for the juggernaut Shanghai Composite
SHCOMP, +1.91%
which rallied almost 3%. Europe
SXXP, +0.09%
is moving a leg lower following Friday’s big move up. Gold
US:GCG5
is up a bit after getting hammered on Friday, while crude
CLF5, +0.00%
is looking squeamish again.

The quote of the day

“It will take almost half as long to fix the escalator in LaGuardia as it took to build the Empire State Building 85 years ago. Is it any wonder that the American people have lost faith in the future and in institutions of all kinds?” — Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, in a piece penned for The Financial Times over the weekend.

The economy

A slow start to the week begins with the labor-market conditions index from the Fed around 10 a.m. Eastern. Other highlights later this week include retail sales and the flow of funds report Thursday. We’ll end the week with an update on consumer sentiment and the producer-price index. Meanwhile, much of the attention will continue to focus on when the Fed will start hiking rates and if it will take rates higher than expected considering the vibrancy of the jobs market.

The buzz

The New York Times reported over the weekend that attorneys general in at least a dozen states are in bed with energy companies and other corporate interests. In return, those firms provide piles of cash to fund their political campaigns. Nice. Surprised? Should be, but probably aren’t.

Barron’s cover ran with four of the most loaded words on Wall Street: “This time it’s different.” The focus was on whether money-losing Internet companies will precipitate a grand dot-com implosion like they did back in 2000. Probably not, was the conclusion reached. When that wretched downturn happens, the blame will likely fall elsewhere. “Maybe the next crash will be caused by unrest in the Middle East, an Ebola pandemic, further slowing in China’s economy, some unforeseen fallout from the collapse in oil prices, or a bellicose maneuver by Russia’s Vladimir Putin,” the authors wrote. “But right now, to us at least, it doesn’t look like Internet stocks will be the culprit.”

I found Barron's cover story, 'it's different this time from Nasdaq 2000', oddly disquieting. Still planning to short a blowoff top in 2015.

The chart of the day

Until the little guys capitulate, oil prices haven’t hit bottom. And they’re still in “buy the dips” mode, according to this chart posted by Tom McClellan of the McClellan Market Report. “Given the amount of the drop in crude oil prices, it would be reasonable to expect these traders to get shaken out of their long positions,” he said. “But that is not what they have been doing ... they are still not yet back to neutral or even net short, which is what it should take to mark the bottom of this decline.”

McClellan

The call of the day

The Shanghai Composite and its mind-bending gains have stolen all the ink lately, but the Short Side of Long blog isn’t talking about that index when he says he’s “jumping on the back of a Red Dragon.” He’s talking about China’s H shares, as represented by funds like iShares MSCI China
MCHI, +1.51%
and iShares China Large-Cap
FXI, +1.72%
They haven’t enjoyed nearly the rally of the Shanghai index. “With China also entering the liquidity game with recent cut in interest rates (and most likely more to come), this index could play catch up to U.S. / Japanese equities which have also benefited from loosen monetary conditions,” the blogger known as Tiho wrote. He used this chart to show how Chinese equities have doubled over a 12-month time frame on five occasions in the last 18 years. In other words, they’ve gone crazy every 3.6 years in the last two decades.

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